Why $1B in Payments Flows Through Polygon with Sam Fagin

Transcript

There's some companies that are focused on privacy, but I think um focusing on this decentralized nature, it's a feature. It's something that's being embraced both by banks and enterprises. >> All of these chains, all of these providers, we want to maximize the velocity that you know is is of the entire industry. How do you how do you think about this? >> Where does the the competitive landscape shake up here for for these payments exchange for these kind of like RWA stablecoin chains? How do you how how do you plan to kind of win and dominate? >> Welcome back to the rule. This is your home to learn from the biggest guests, the brightest minds at the tip of innovation.

>> Our goal is to help spread the collective knowledge of everyone in our community. >> We are breaking crypto out of [music] its echo chamber and taking it to the real world. Sit back, relax, and enjoy it. >> [music] >> Welcome back to Money Moves Fast episode number nine, our premier payments show powered by the one and only Polygon. We've got Sam Fagen today and the man the myth from the Polygon team for his first appearance on the show. Um we're here live at SmartCon. Sam, good to have you back.

>> What's up guys? Uh super excited to be here. You said to me that this was your you were in in the space for eight years just to get to this moment. >> I'm waiting for this moment right now. >> What is this moment? >> I think a lot of us when we got into this industry were thinking about what it would look like for money to move like information moves today. And I think we're kind of uh we're crossing the chasm. We just went we're crossing the starting gates and the moment is now. We're starting to see enterprise adoption, starting to see institutional adoption of stable coins, and yeah, it's just super exciting. And uh yeah, >> and it's h it's happening on Polygon.

>> A lot of it's happening on Polygon. Yeah. >> I mean, look, you guys processed over a billion dollars in payments in the first half of 2025. >> And so the moment is now you guys are the convergence of Wall Street and internet finance. And so now we're seeing money is just information. It's just ones and zeros. Most of it's digital anyway. This is the best way to move that money and move it fast. Yeah. Why do you think most of that activity is happening on Hollywood? >> Yeah, I think we've uh taken the approach of fortunately we have a lot of folks that know the traditional system, know some of the the pain points and limitations and we've taken the time to to really get to know our enterprise customers and solve problems for them.

Um a few examples like Stripe uh notoriously is uh use polygon as the primary gene. um longtail they want to make payments a lot cheaper for small to mediumsiz businesses. So their core business is SMB um if you are using stable coins with your payments uh interchange and transaction fees are lower. Another example a top uh three money remitter is using polygon. Um so there's uh something called preunding. So if you're a remittance company you're holding dormant capital in currencies and bank accounts across the world to make sure that you're able to ledger transactions. So it could be dollar to U BRL as an example. That BRL needs to sit in Brazilian bank accounts in order to

complete that transaction. What stable coins allow you to do is release some of that capital, limit some of the refunding requirements and make everything happen 24/7. Um another good example, Flutterwave, we just announced a partnership with them. They're the largest African PSP. Um the use case there some of their merchants such as Netflix and Uber large enterprises they are accepting payments in Naira which is the local currency in Nigeria they don't want that FX exposure. So as soon as they accept the Naira they're immediately swapping to a stable coin USDC or USDT. Now Flutterwave is going to be building on Polygon to solve that last mile where you're taking stable coins swapping to dollars and sending to Netflix and Uber bank accounts. So yeah,

so there was a lot of risk because when you took custody of those assets, call it, you know, one of these Brazilian currencies or Nigerian currencies or any any any currency that had directional exposure, they the settlement time was like two, three days in order for them to get out of that currency. Stable coin brings that settlement time way down. >> Exactly. Near instantly. >> Yeah. >> Talk to us about the uh the Rio upgrade for Polygon. I I I know that this has just gone through in the last week or two. uh you know sometime in October. Big upgrade for the payments focus uh for Polygon. Talk to us about what lower finality means for these stable coin payments. And you know why this is so important?

>> Yeah, to put into perspective, we're now at 5,000 TPS. Uh as a comparison, Mastercard's average TPS is 5,000. Visa is usually around 6,500. So now we're comparable with large payment networks that we know are billion billions and trillions of dollars of transactions. Um, so Polygon now is at the level where we have this distribution with enterprise and we're ready to take that next step and truly scale um, this new pavement rail. Um, we're really here to just enhance the current systems um, and the current infrastructure that they have and make things more fast and efficient. Um but yeah >> and on a similar note also with techn you know the technical architecture of this is that stablecoin TVL is up 45% on polygon but transaction fees are still

at the minimum for these payments. Uh a lot of that is thanks to blobs and and ethereum also scaling h how do you balance scale and also sustainability when you're thinking about polygon's fee structure you want to make sure that you're collecting but also you want to make sure you're providing a good service to your customers. Yeah. How >> how do you strike that balance? >> Yeah, I think um again I think we're kind of rooted in solving problems uh for our customers and we understand to optimize uh for payments specifically. Um we want this to move um at very low costs. So I think that's really our number one priority. But we're thinking about um other revenue streams. We're working on a lot of um onchain products.

So different use cases such as FX onchain, such as onchain credit which is getting a lot of uh a lot of demand and that solves a weekend settlement crunch. So right now notoriously you receive a settlement from Visa, Mastercard, let's just say you process $10 million on a Friday, you would receive that settlement next week on say Monday or Tuesday. So onchain credit um with some yield components to it is something that we're building on chain and I mentioned yields. So we're working with a lot of our fintech partners. Lemonash is fintech in Latin America that's going to be offering high yield savings accounts uh to their end users on Polygon. So there are other streams and other products that we're bringing on chain to

think about revenue. Uh but ultimately when it comes to moving money, we want to make it uh extremely fast and extremely cheap. >> Yeah. As a as a Jets fan, you're not used to winning, but I think you're winning right now, man. >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> Yeah. [laughter] How does it feel to be a winner? It feels great, man. Yeah. Yeah. >> I mean, we are winning as an industry. I mean, just holistically, like you said, when we kicked off >> about that Baker Mayfield guy, right? >> Yeah, he's pretty damn good. [laughter] >> I mean, come on. >> Come on, baby. >> He's a guy. He's a gamer. Yeah, >> Baker Mayfield. He doesn't go down easy. >> I think he's actually joining the Polygon payments team after.

Yeah. >> Okay. So, keep winning. >> Exactly. Yeah. All right. >> And so, here at here at Saroni, it's very sudy, right? It's very financeoriented. I think I think we talk a lot about technology and a lot about the actual tech behind you know what's happening but it seems like here the tech is almost you know as expected with like you know chain abstraction account abstraction like this whole idea of kind of like this define mullet of like all this stuff happening behind and on the front you don't really realize it really feels more real here today you know from your experience in interacting with you know the large institutions of the world the money movers the fintexs, but how much does this really matter to

them? How much does Polygon's technology really matter? How much does blockchain matter versus the like the end outcome, right? Like basically what I'm getting out of here is like how much do they really care about the tech versus just what they want? Yeah. I think a lot of these companies, whether it be um a Robin Hood or Revolute or whether it be a Stripe, they're worried about their end customer and they want to provide the best experience to merchants and then downstream to their users. So, I think frankly a lot of the uh the blockchains have gotten uh as far as like the TPS and the performance, they're all very good, but some of them are specializing and we're specializing in payments. And the way in which I we like to think about it is we want to tap

into these large distribution channels that already have a really good front end and just power their backend and make it more uh streamlined and efficient. We talk about supercharging fiat. >> Uh so whether it's a settlement, whether it's a payout, um users expect their money to be instant just like they expect a text message to be instant. So, we're kind of at that point in which for us, we want to identify the problems and we want to be that go-to provider and that consultant as these companies move on. >> Habachi provable trade pers with speed and security. Earn rewards. Visit [music] hibbachi.xyz.

Trading on fire. The wait is over. The Talis [music] test net is live. Be part of the revolution. Join now at testnet.talis.network. Asset management redefined. Built on [music] ERC7621 standardize how you launch, manage, and trade onchain baskets. This is Alvara, the standard for onchain asset management. A lot a lot of times like you're you mentioned dormant money that's sitting on some of these remittance platforms. A lot of the the aspect of payments isn't necessarily, you know, one payment going some from point A to point B. It it's, you know, what you do with that money when it's not being moved.

>> Yes. >> What do you do? How do you provide yield? like h how can we maximize the output and the productivity of the money that is just kind of sitting there waiting to be transferred or remitted. >> Yeah. So I think um we definitely think about treasury quite a bit and we are starting to see payment companies um and remittance companies starting to launch their own super app and like what that looks like um we all know the top remittance companies whether it's Western Union whether it's Moneygram notoriously they've they're very good at peer-to-peer payments but they're not providing additional financial services you're now starting to see these companies launch digital wallets in which on the back end it could be an RWA or could be just a stable coin in which

the user is earning yield but on the front end it just appear like your everyday stable um your everyday savings account. So I think what some of the companies are doing very well is on the front end user seems exactly the same but they're just replacing the defy mullet earlier um it's a great analogy like on the back end just more efficient rails um and better systems and better architecture. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I'm thinking about the most unsexy, boring use cases of crypto, it's what we were, you know, learning about in 2017 and 2018. It's it's it feels like, you know, as you said when we kicked off, like this is the moment that we've been waiting for.

>> You know, it almost feels like whatever we've been doing for the last like, you know, six, seven years, you know, it was always just stable coins and payments and and, you know, these types of basic things. >> Yep. Yeah. the fundamentals were always speed and efficiency of transactions, right? But then access and inclusion. >> Yeah. >> So for us like the way we like we have this narrative of of modernization with a purpose. Yeah. So like downstream like I'll use the Flutterwave example again like downstream once they launch a B2C product on Polygon that will be giving access to the dollar whereas traditionally the systems have worked really good in a few markets let's just say the US, Europe, UK but now everywhere uh to everyone all at once.

Um, they're going to have access to the dollar. They're going to be holding a currency that holds value and uh the level the playing field. I know a lot of folks in this industry have said that for a while and it's been pretty incredible to see the support from the highest form of power in the US being the the government, you know, on 60 minutes last Sunday, Trump has had basically said that he just wants to win crypto. Yeah. Um, s stable coins are clearly a way for the US to extend the dollar's, you know, hedgeimony globally. Yeah. >> And dominance. >> Yeah.

>> So, it's it's kind of like we have all the firepower needed to make this happen and and and then it's teams like yourselves basically going out and implementing that in a private kind of commercialized fashion. >> Yeah. >> You know, we have Secretary Bess saying I think three trillion dollars in stable coin supply by 2028. You know, I think that we can get to 10 trillion in the 2030s. >> Where does Polygon fit in this? You know, where does where does the the competitive landscape shake up here for for these payments chains for these kind of like RWA stable coin chains? How do you how do you plan to kind of win and dominate into the 2030s?

>> Yeah, I I think ultimately we talk about just access and inclusion. I think we're a pretty purpose- driven organization and I think uh leading with that ethos, hopefully the rest will will play itself out. Uh but right now we're really just focused on on payments and providing access and inclusion to to people that need it most. I think I mentioned it earlier like traditionally the infrastructure today or the systems today works for a few markets. Uh but now we want it to work everywhere and for for everyone. So, um I I think right now we're trying to solve problems and we're just uh we're just crossing the starting gate.

>> Yeah. >> But, uh I think we'll do we'll do pretty well if we just stick to our our ethos and solving problems for for large enterprises and institutions. Yeah, you know, one thing you mentioned about capital velocity is kind of I I thought about this before where, you know, it's difficult for for a company to really monetize and and continue to maintain monetary velocity because one thing about velocity is that it's in motion. So, it's going maybe from Polygon to somewhere else. >> When you think about capital velocity, I I agree that's a much more uh uh accurate indication of the the health of an economy because buying and selling things, you don't want just a bunch of money sitting in one place. you want it, you want transactions flowing back and forth. And so do you think about the

velocity within the Polygon ecosystem like we can bounce back and forth but it all stays in Polygon or do you think okay we've got all of these chains all of these providers we want to maximize the velocity that you know is is of the entire industry. How how do you think about this? >> Yeah, so it's a few points. Um one on the prior point regarding Polygon specifically, we want to tap into these large distribution channels. So we go on our mobile phones every day. We use Robin Hood. You mentioned Venmo earlier. We want to be in those conversations in which when they make a move on chain, we want to tap into those distribution channels um where transactions are happening on the Polygon network. Um now as far as interoperability, uh we do have a product called a layer very early

days but basically it's a unified uh settlement layer. So unifying liquidity across change chains to ultimately have that uh unified liquidity to disperse um respectively. So, we are thinking about interop, but I think right now um we're we're probably 5 10 years away from really scaling that technology. And I think folks at Polygon might have a different answer to that question. Um but right now we're focused on a network of of solving problems and and having that distribution um on our network. >> Relay, low fees, lightning speed, and the power of multi-chain at your [music] fingertips. Instant multi-chain payments. Choose any token on any chain.

75 plus network supported, more than 5 million [music] users, 8 billion plus volume processed, 70 million plus transactions. [music] Fast, reliable everywhere. Start swapping today only on Relay. Blockchain shortcuts, templates, and widgets. Launch without friction for builders by builders. Visit enso.build. >> What are you uh what are you most bullish on right now? what are you uh bearish or conscious about in the industry?

>> Um so I'm I'm very bullish on some of these just I'm just bullish on these larger enterprises starting to adopt stable coins. I just think um I got into this industry with a very purpose- driven mindset and right now this is coming to fruition. So someone in Africa or someone in Latin America now have access to a dollar just by downloading a digital wallet and being able to use it for goods and services. I think that's super exciting and it makes the the world a better place. Um what am I bearish about? Um I think right now there's actually a very strong narrative behind privacy and I think we're very very early in the technology. So while I

think there's uh a lot of capital now flowing into I think we're seeing like Decath and Dash like we're seeing a lot institutional money pumping in. I just think these networks and these protocols are very very early >> and being able to solve for full anonymity of both the transaction and the sender and recipients. Still very very early days. Um but I do think at Polygon we are um set up to to solve for this. We are having conversations with enterprises and kind of whiteboarding what this solution looks like today and right now and it's we're in its early stages. We're about to uh to get to the point where it's enterprise grade and ready for uh deployments but uh the

amount of capital flowing in right now is pretty crazy. >> Polygon historically one of the strongest ZK teams in the space. I remember speaking with Jordie Bolina when he was at Hermes and >> we're super excited. We'll get Yeah, it's interesting. We were talking to a bank the other day and folks were some of the folks on the team were talking about privacy, but the head of blockchain there was saying uh the public nature is actually a feature. So like traditionally if you're sending a wire or you're sending an a sender and recipient don't really have a chance to to track that payments. They don't know when it lands. They don't know where the status is. They would have to call their bank. Hopefully, they get someone in customer service that's friendly and is willing to answer their questions. But

now, if you're doing that same transaction on chain, you can see that the it's pending, the transaction is is on its way, and then it's ultimately received. So, banks are actually seeing it as a a feature. So, I think there's uh there's some companies that are focused on privacy, but I think um focusing on this decentralized nature, it's a feature. It's something that's being embraced both by banks and enterprises. >> Sam, thanks for your time, man. Looking forward to the growth of Polygon, the stable coins, the growth of payments, and the unsexy and boring stuff that we all came here for.

>> You think it's [laughter] sex, so knows what's going on out there, but but it's our pleasure, man. Thank you. >> Thank you, guys. This is great. Holding fast.